Trump to Convene USPS Task Force. Will It Save the Postal Service?

“The task force will be assigned to study factors including USPS’s pricing in the package delivery market and will have 120 days to submit a report with recommendations.”

By NTK Staff | 04.13.2018 @11:30am

After a series of tweets indicated he was unhappy with the U.S. Postal Service’s current business model, particularly its relationship with its biggest customer, Amazon, President Trump signed an executive order Thursday to create a “task force” that will look into ways to make the system sustainable.

In the surprise move, Trump said that USPS is on “an unsustainable financial path” and “must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout.”

The task force will be assigned to study factors including USPS’s pricing in the package delivery market and will have 120 days to submit a report with recommendations.

While it’s true that the Postal Service has lost money for years, “package delivery has actually been a bright spot for the service,” according to the Associated Press. That fact runs counter to Trump’s claims that Amazon is part of the problem.

I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!

Still, could Amazon do more to help the USPS? And should they? Analysts are divided, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Some analysts have argued that the Postal Service should consider charging Amazon and other package deliverers more to make up for other liabilities in pension and health-care costs, but few analysts agree with the president’s assertion that Amazon causes the service to lose money.

Trump loves his public image as a dealmaker, so he’ll likely follow through enough to get some changes at the USPS, but as The National Review’s Jim Geraghty pointed out earlier this month, making major reforms is not as easy as it sounds.